Scriptures: James 1:2-12, Job 28:20-23

What does faith in real life look like? In the book of James, the author begins to take certain situations and show, in real life, how a person of real faith would respond. What would your faith look like on the outside if it was real on the inside? In this short book there are 54 imperative verses telling us to do this or to do that--because if your faith is real then in certain situations you will respond in certain ways, because that is how faith works. In this message, Dr. Merritt walks with James as he exposes the differences between real faith and "sunshine faith"--God uses troubles to test our faith to see whether or not it is real and to toughen our faith if it is.

"Everybody is headed for trouble and trouble is headed for you at some point. Just as weeds grow in gardens and thorns grow on roses, troubles grow in the flowerbed of life. This is true of everybody whether you love God or not, believe in God or not, obey God or not and worship God or not." --Dr. Merritt

Keywords: faith, works, test, Emergency Broadcasting System, EBS, MCAT, SAT, LSAT, James, trouble, challenge, pain, pearl, strengthen, tried, true, precious